💬 Friday discussion: Messy transitions

Let’s say they are right. Let’s imagine that crypto-protagonists and the DeFi community is broadly correct with their overall thesis. That crypto will become properly mainstream, significantly so, as a store of value, means of payment, tool of governance, and mechanism for allocating and managing resources.

After all, more than $2 trillion is held in crypto assets today. And the gross value locked in the Ethereum DeFi ecosystem has increased about 250 times in 18 months. Even a slower growth of 35% per annum (a few hundred times slower than the recent rate), would see the DeFi ecosystem valued at $40 trillion in a decade. Growth of 50% per annum over ten years would put this value at over $100 trillion. (Total net wealth in the world is around $431 trillion today according to BCG, rising to about $544 trillion by 2025.)

It is worth asking why DeFi has so much attention from both excellent developers and people within the traditional finance industry.

Transition ramp

What does the transiti…